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August 03, 2009

Alan Kitching: Word perfect

Over the past decade, many young designers have increasingly embraced letterpress printing as an antidote to the clinical quality brought about by the digital age. The smell of ink, the feel of metal and wood block letters, and the heavy textured paper, with the impressions left by type biting into the surface all put you at the heart of making a connection with the past.

There is one special man who has printer's ink coursing through his veins and has elevated letterpress composition to an art form. He has been doing it for over four decades. He is Alan Kitching…

I interviewed him back in 2001 for Design Week as part of my Heroes series.

Here it is…

Alan Kitching RDI with a woven example of his work created for the American Geological Institute in Oaxaca, 2000

I rarely put designers'
work on the walls of my home, but there are two exceptions to this rule. There
is beautiful typographical map of London's Clerkenwell – where I live for
part of the week – by Alan Kitching...

A typographical map of London's Clerkenwell, 1992

It has an added appeal for me because my
name has been

overprinted on the exact location of my flat.

courtesy of
Kitching. I never tire of the inventiveness of the

map's typographic
construction.

Kitching was born in Darlington, 30 miles south of Newcastle,
in 1940. It's a place synonymous with railway history. The railway workshops
were the major employer in the area and annually sucked in a new labour force
from the town. During the 1950s, the majority of this fresh blood came from the
secondary modern schools, where you ended up if you failed the 11-plus – a
pitiful age to be singled out as a failure. The term 'secondary' made you feel
just that, a second-class citizen. I know because I went to one, as did
Kitching.

At the age of 15, the prospect of a life in the factories servicing
the railways began to loom large. Mr Kay, a slightly eccentric violin-playing
art teacher, saved him from that fate. A little earlier at school, Kitching and
a friend had unearthed a small, flatbed Adana press in the art room. With the
help and enthusiasm of Mr Kay they started to typeset and print carol sheets
for the school concert, along with flyers and notices. Kitching recalls that
the only typeface they had was eight and ten point Gill Sans Medium. When I
asked if there had been any creative influences in his family it triggered an
earlier memory. As an eight-year-old, he remembers his grandfather, who was
employed as a sign writer by London and North Eastern Railway, showing him the
typeface he was about to hand letter on the side of a carriage. It was Gill
Sans. Kitching never forgot it. When the inevitable day came to meet the
'youth employment officer' at the end of his final year at school, a scrubbed
and suited Kitching, with his mother in tow, hesitantly ventured that he would
like to be a poster artist. A frosty silence emanated from this figure of
authority. 'Now Alan, the railway would give you a good solid trade and
security for life,' he said. Depressed by this proposal, Kitching discussed the
matter with Mr Kay, who suggested that the print trade might be a better
option. Eventually, with the help of this dedicated art teacher, Kitching found
himself working at a commercial typesetter and printer in the centre of
Darlington. He had found his home. The rich aromatic smell of ink and the tactile
quality of the job appealed to his sensitivities.

In 1955, he undertook the
six-year apprenticeship to become a qualified compositor. Kitching gradually
gained the respect of his boss, who eventually allowed him to completely
reorganise the composing room and also experiment with new forms of layout.
Kitching had been inspired to attempt these after seeing an article by Jan
Tschichold in Printing Britain. Eventually he realised that to fulfil his now
burgeoning creative urges he would have to move on. After completing his
apprenticeship, he migrated to South East England where he worked for an
agricultural printer. While this got him away from his birthplace, it was not
close enough to the type of work he wanted to do. In 1963, he applied for a
post as a print technician at Watford College of Technology. He was successful
and it was to be the turning point in his creative journey. In the 1960s,
Watford, along with the London College of Printing, was a major provider of
highly trained compositors to the industry...

An early letterpress peice a poster for Watford College of Technology,1967

Kitching settled into college life
and found his ability to pass on knowledge rewarding. He quickly discovered
there were two aspects to the college; the practical printing techniques of the
print school, which he was part of, and the design school, which at the time
was headed up by Douglas Merritt. Kitching was still looking for a way to
express his suppressed creativity. The opportunity came when the influential
typographic designer Anthony Froshaug took over from Merritt as head of the design
school. Kitching had read Froshaug's book Typographic Norms and was deeply
impressed. Froshaug was keen to set up a standalone type workshop within the
design school -- and Kitching was determined to secure the post. He was
subjected to a gruelling five-man interview panel, and Kitching thought he'd
blown it when, in the middle of the proceedings, he started pacing around the
room ges ticulating in a nervous frenzy, much to the surprise of the onlookers.
But he got the job. In 1965, the experimental Type Workshop was established,
with Froshaug at the helm and Kitching in the engine room. Kitching remembers
that initially the relationship was rather formal. Very quickly Froshaug
recognised that he had a special person at his side and they settled into a solid
working relationship. This culminated in an exhibition of the workshop's output
at the Institute of Contemporary Art, where 30 per cent of the typographic
gymnastics were Kitching's. He had arrived. This creative awakening was
further enhanced when two new lecturers arrived at Watford. Diter Rot and
Hansjorg Mayer were a fine art- and concrete poetry-based duo and most
definitely 'off the wall'. Their influence opened up Kitching to a freer, more
expressive use of typography and he remembers this as a pivotal moment. By 1968
he had taken on a part-time post at Central St Martins School of Art &
Design and had produced his own book Typographical Manual. While at St Martins,
he worked alongside fellow tutors Derek Birdsall, Michael Foreman, Nicola Grey
and Ron Sanford. He also started to take on freelance work. Colin Forbes, a
founder of Pentagram, would often use Kitching's supreme typographical skill on
various complex projects.

Two posters produced in colaboration with Colin Forbes, 1973

Forbes suggested that he gave up teaching and get
closer to the design industry. He took this advice and in 1971 started a
freelance practice from his home in Richmond, then later in Covent Garden -- at
that time an inexpensive enclave of the creative industry. He settled into a
range of freelance work, from guidebooks and wall charts for the British Museum
to posters and book covers. He slipped briefly back into teaching in 1975 at
Goldsmith College, but this only lasted a year. In 1977, he joined with
Birdsall and Martin Lee and became a partner of Omnific Design. Here, Kitching
worked on a range of corporate and publishing work. It was a very enjoyable
period for him, working within such a prestigious consultancy. An opportunity
arose to purchase a large quantity of typesetting equipment from Stephenson
Blake, the famous type founder, which was sadly closing down after 70 years in
business. Both Birdsall and Kitching thought it an interesting idea to embrace
this outgoing technology for experimentation and special projects. Kitching
set up the equipment at an old factory close to Birdsall's home. He recalls
that it did not get the use that they had hoped for. But in 1984 Kitchings
world was turned upside-down when his wife died, leaving him with two young
children. It was clearly a traumatic period that, understandably, he still
finds hard to discuss. What is clear is that being confronted with the
fragility of life gave him an inner strength to pursue the creative path that
he craved. While working at Omnific was prestigious and rewarding, it must have
been difficult for Kitching to shine from under the considerable creative
shadow cast by Birdsall. In 1988, much to Birdsalls surprise, Kitching
resigned from Omnific. With Birdsalls agreement he purchased the letterpress
equipment. Kitching recalls with affection the support and encouragement that
Birdsall gave him at that time. Birdsall had just taken over from Gert Dumbar
as professor of graphics at the Royal College of Art.

Poster for Hamlet, 2001

Poster celebrating the aniverary of the Royal Albert Hall, London

He suggested that
Kitching consider teaching typography one day a week. He agreed to this and thus
ushered in another key moment in his creative journey. In between teaching he
set up the presses he had purchased in a Victorian industrial building in
Clerkenwell Green. The RCA letterpress and print department was situated at
Kensington Gore, separate from the new college building. Here Kitching would
come each week and pass on his skill and inventiveness to a new generation. All
seemed well until Jocelyn Stevens, the then rector, announced his intention to
close the department. He could not see the point of hanging on to this
antiquated method of working in the face of new technology. Kitching fought
this decision alongside Margaret Calvert, Birdsall, Dumbar and many others.
They won and later in an ironic turn of fate the print department was rehoused
in a brand new wing of the RCA in 1992. It was called the Stevens Building,
donated by the very man who wanted to junk the department.

It was during this
same year that Kitching started the Typographic Workshop at the RCA. The
formula remains unchanged to this day: six students, two days a week for a
three-week course. They have proved popular and are always over subscribed,
taking students from all disciplines. A visit to Kitching's Typographic
Workshop in Clerkenwell is both a visual and a nostalgic delight. Here you will
find him wearing a black beret, sporting a full greying beard and draped in an
ink-stained apron, standing amid a batch of freshly proofed sheets that dance
across the room pegged out like washing on a line. The warmth and aged patina
of the cabinets and wood block type set against the cast iron presses create a
cosiness that makes you want to brew up instantly, sit in the corner and listen
to the deep embracing tones of the Radio 4 afternoon play. It is here that
Kitching carries out most of his freelance commissions, which these days can be
anything from a postage stamp, to an ad campaign, to the recently completed
Poems on the Buses series. The latest milestone in Kitching's career is a new
venture at his home -- an alehouse in a former life -- that he shares with his
partner Celia Stothard, a designer, teacher, singer and letterpress enthusiast.
From here they plan to exhibit and sell the output from the various workshops
that Kitching runs, along with his own, more personal work. They also envisage
lecture evenings. Kitching has set up some more presses here and it houses yet
more wood type collections rescued or purchased from various parts of the
country. One remarkable find was from the Somerset village of Wrington. Here a
long-established theatrical printer had closed down. It had been based in a
barn. Kitching and Stothard were overwhelmed with what they discovered. There
was a 12m run of cabinets and shelves containing extraordinarily large size
cuts of wood type used on pantomime and circus posters. In the middle of the
barn stood a majestic Wharfedal two-colour printing press. Kitching was
enthused by this. Sadly, it was far too big for either of Kitching's workshops,
but a determined Stothard eventually secured a home for it at the Type Museum,
courtesy of a helpful printer. It is also Stothard who is painstakingly
cataloguing all of the type in their growing collection. The Wrington
collection alone has taken a year to record and she has set about unearthing
the definitive collection of Kitching's work. Kitching is keeping something
very special from our past alive, but not in a retrospective way. In his hands
it becomes an exciting and inspirational medium, which he approaches with an
intuitive understanding that comes from a 45-year relationship with the craft.
Quite simply, he lives it and it shows.

Millenium stamp for Royal Mail,1999

Poster for London's National Theatre, 2000

I ended my meeting with this
enthusiastic pair, recalling Kitching's childhood in Darlington where his
father, a joiner by profession, would lovingly paint small water colours in the
evening or would pick up his accordion and cheer everyone up with a tune. I
turned to Kitching and said, 'I don't suppose you...' Before I could finish the
sentence he was standing before me holding a very serious looking accordion
which he set about demonstrating and from my left Stothard joined in with a
remarkably clear and tuneful voice.

As I watched Kitching's agile fingers
dance across the grid of buttons I could see a connection with type
composition, with the same dexterity and intuitive flow. My eyes glanced down
to the floor and as I listened to this musical duo I thought how Kitching could
reflect on a full and rewarding life; a tutor at a prestigious art and design
college, a member of Alliance Graphic International and a Royal Designer for
Industry. Not bad for an 11-plus failer, destined to spend his life working for
the railway.

And what about the designer who created the other work on my
wall? That's another story.

Comments

Alan Kitching: Word perfect

Over the past decade, many young designers have increasingly embraced letterpress printing as an antidote to the clinical quality brought about by the digital age. The smell of ink, the feel of metal and wood block letters, and the heavy textured paper, with the impressions left by type biting into the surface all put you at the heart of making a connection with the past.

There is one special man who has printer's ink coursing through his veins and has elevated letterpress composition to an art form. He has been doing it for over four decades. He is Alan Kitching…

I interviewed him back in 2001 for Design Week as part of my Heroes series.

Here it is…

Alan Kitching RDI with a woven example of his work created for the American Geological Institute in Oaxaca, 2000

I rarely put designers'
work on the walls of my home, but there are two exceptions to this rule. There
is beautiful typographical map of London's Clerkenwell – where I live for
part of the week – by Alan Kitching...

A typographical map of London's Clerkenwell, 1992

It has an added appeal for me because my
name has been

overprinted on the exact location of my flat.

courtesy of
Kitching. I never tire of the inventiveness of the

map's typographic
construction.

Kitching was born in Darlington, 30 miles south of Newcastle,
in 1940. It's a place synonymous with railway history. The railway workshops
were the major employer in the area and annually sucked in a new labour force
from the town. During the 1950s, the majority of this fresh blood came from the
secondary modern schools, where you ended up if you failed the 11-plus – a
pitiful age to be singled out as a failure. The term 'secondary' made you feel
just that, a second-class citizen. I know because I went to one, as did
Kitching.

At the age of 15, the prospect of a life in the factories servicing
the railways began to loom large. Mr Kay, a slightly eccentric violin-playing
art teacher, saved him from that fate. A little earlier at school, Kitching and
a friend had unearthed a small, flatbed Adana press in the art room. With the
help and enthusiasm of Mr Kay they started to typeset and print carol sheets
for the school concert, along with flyers and notices. Kitching recalls that
the only typeface they had was eight and ten point Gill Sans Medium. When I
asked if there had been any creative influences in his family it triggered an
earlier memory. As an eight-year-old, he remembers his grandfather, who was
employed as a sign writer by London and North Eastern Railway, showing him the
typeface he was about to hand letter on the side of a carriage. It was Gill
Sans. Kitching never forgot it. When the inevitable day came to meet the
'youth employment officer' at the end of his final year at school, a scrubbed
and suited Kitching, with his mother in tow, hesitantly ventured that he would
like to be a poster artist. A frosty silence emanated from this figure of
authority. 'Now Alan, the railway would give you a good solid trade and
security for life,' he said. Depressed by this proposal, Kitching discussed the
matter with Mr Kay, who suggested that the print trade might be a better
option. Eventually, with the help of this dedicated art teacher, Kitching found
himself working at a commercial typesetter and printer in the centre of
Darlington. He had found his home. The rich aromatic smell of ink and the tactile
quality of the job appealed to his sensitivities.

In 1955, he undertook the
six-year apprenticeship to become a qualified compositor. Kitching gradually
gained the respect of his boss, who eventually allowed him to completely
reorganise the composing room and also experiment with new forms of layout.
Kitching had been inspired to attempt these after seeing an article by Jan
Tschichold in Printing Britain. Eventually he realised that to fulfil his now
burgeoning creative urges he would have to move on. After completing his
apprenticeship, he migrated to South East England where he worked for an
agricultural printer. While this got him away from his birthplace, it was not
close enough to the type of work he wanted to do. In 1963, he applied for a
post as a print technician at Watford College of Technology. He was successful
and it was to be the turning point in his creative journey. In the 1960s,
Watford, along with the London College of Printing, was a major provider of
highly trained compositors to the industry...

An early letterpress peice a poster for Watford College of Technology,1967

Kitching settled into college life
and found his ability to pass on knowledge rewarding. He quickly discovered
there were two aspects to the college; the practical printing techniques of the
print school, which he was part of, and the design school, which at the time
was headed up by Douglas Merritt. Kitching was still looking for a way to
express his suppressed creativity. The opportunity came when the influential
typographic designer Anthony Froshaug took over from Merritt as head of the design
school. Kitching had read Froshaug's book Typographic Norms and was deeply
impressed. Froshaug was keen to set up a standalone type workshop within the
design school -- and Kitching was determined to secure the post. He was
subjected to a gruelling five-man interview panel, and Kitching thought he'd
blown it when, in the middle of the proceedings, he started pacing around the
room ges ticulating in a nervous frenzy, much to the surprise of the onlookers.
But he got the job. In 1965, the experimental Type Workshop was established,
with Froshaug at the helm and Kitching in the engine room. Kitching remembers
that initially the relationship was rather formal. Very quickly Froshaug
recognised that he had a special person at his side and they settled into a solid
working relationship. This culminated in an exhibition of the workshop's output
at the Institute of Contemporary Art, where 30 per cent of the typographic
gymnastics were Kitching's. He had arrived. This creative awakening was
further enhanced when two new lecturers arrived at Watford. Diter Rot and
Hansjorg Mayer were a fine art- and concrete poetry-based duo and most
definitely 'off the wall'. Their influence opened up Kitching to a freer, more
expressive use of typography and he remembers this as a pivotal moment. By 1968
he had taken on a part-time post at Central St Martins School of Art &
Design and had produced his own book Typographical Manual. While at St Martins,
he worked alongside fellow tutors Derek Birdsall, Michael Foreman, Nicola Grey
and Ron Sanford. He also started to take on freelance work. Colin Forbes, a
founder of Pentagram, would often use Kitching's supreme typographical skill on
various complex projects.

Two posters produced in colaboration with Colin Forbes, 1973

Forbes suggested that he gave up teaching and get
closer to the design industry. He took this advice and in 1971 started a
freelance practice from his home in Richmond, then later in Covent Garden -- at
that time an inexpensive enclave of the creative industry. He settled into a
range of freelance work, from guidebooks and wall charts for the British Museum
to posters and book covers. He slipped briefly back into teaching in 1975 at
Goldsmith College, but this only lasted a year. In 1977, he joined with
Birdsall and Martin Lee and became a partner of Omnific Design. Here, Kitching
worked on a range of corporate and publishing work. It was a very enjoyable
period for him, working within such a prestigious consultancy. An opportunity
arose to purchase a large quantity of typesetting equipment from Stephenson
Blake, the famous type founder, which was sadly closing down after 70 years in
business. Both Birdsall and Kitching thought it an interesting idea to embrace
this outgoing technology for experimentation and special projects. Kitching
set up the equipment at an old factory close to Birdsall's home. He recalls
that it did not get the use that they had hoped for. But in 1984 Kitchings
world was turned upside-down when his wife died, leaving him with two young
children. It was clearly a traumatic period that, understandably, he still
finds hard to discuss. What is clear is that being confronted with the
fragility of life gave him an inner strength to pursue the creative path that
he craved. While working at Omnific was prestigious and rewarding, it must have
been difficult for Kitching to shine from under the considerable creative
shadow cast by Birdsall. In 1988, much to Birdsalls surprise, Kitching
resigned from Omnific. With Birdsalls agreement he purchased the letterpress
equipment. Kitching recalls with affection the support and encouragement that
Birdsall gave him at that time. Birdsall had just taken over from Gert Dumbar
as professor of graphics at the Royal College of Art.

Poster for Hamlet, 2001

Poster celebrating the aniverary of the Royal Albert Hall, London

He suggested that
Kitching consider teaching typography one day a week. He agreed to this and thus
ushered in another key moment in his creative journey. In between teaching he
set up the presses he had purchased in a Victorian industrial building in
Clerkenwell Green. The RCA letterpress and print department was situated at
Kensington Gore, separate from the new college building. Here Kitching would
come each week and pass on his skill and inventiveness to a new generation. All
seemed well until Jocelyn Stevens, the then rector, announced his intention to
close the department. He could not see the point of hanging on to this
antiquated method of working in the face of new technology. Kitching fought
this decision alongside Margaret Calvert, Birdsall, Dumbar and many others.
They won and later in an ironic turn of fate the print department was rehoused
in a brand new wing of the RCA in 1992. It was called the Stevens Building,
donated by the very man who wanted to junk the department.

It was during this
same year that Kitching started the Typographic Workshop at the RCA. The
formula remains unchanged to this day: six students, two days a week for a
three-week course. They have proved popular and are always over subscribed,
taking students from all disciplines. A visit to Kitching's Typographic
Workshop in Clerkenwell is both a visual and a nostalgic delight. Here you will
find him wearing a black beret, sporting a full greying beard and draped in an
ink-stained apron, standing amid a batch of freshly proofed sheets that dance
across the room pegged out like washing on a line. The warmth and aged patina
of the cabinets and wood block type set against the cast iron presses create a
cosiness that makes you want to brew up instantly, sit in the corner and listen
to the deep embracing tones of the Radio 4 afternoon play. It is here that
Kitching carries out most of his freelance commissions, which these days can be
anything from a postage stamp, to an ad campaign, to the recently completed
Poems on the Buses series. The latest milestone in Kitching's career is a new
venture at his home -- an alehouse in a former life -- that he shares with his
partner Celia Stothard, a designer, teacher, singer and letterpress enthusiast.
From here they plan to exhibit and sell the output from the various workshops
that Kitching runs, along with his own, more personal work. They also envisage
lecture evenings. Kitching has set up some more presses here and it houses yet
more wood type collections rescued or purchased from various parts of the
country. One remarkable find was from the Somerset village of Wrington. Here a
long-established theatrical printer had closed down. It had been based in a
barn. Kitching and Stothard were overwhelmed with what they discovered. There
was a 12m run of cabinets and shelves containing extraordinarily large size
cuts of wood type used on pantomime and circus posters. In the middle of the
barn stood a majestic Wharfedal two-colour printing press. Kitching was
enthused by this. Sadly, it was far too big for either of Kitching's workshops,
but a determined Stothard eventually secured a home for it at the Type Museum,
courtesy of a helpful printer. It is also Stothard who is painstakingly
cataloguing all of the type in their growing collection. The Wrington
collection alone has taken a year to record and she has set about unearthing
the definitive collection of Kitching's work. Kitching is keeping something
very special from our past alive, but not in a retrospective way. In his hands
it becomes an exciting and inspirational medium, which he approaches with an
intuitive understanding that comes from a 45-year relationship with the craft.
Quite simply, he lives it and it shows.

Millenium stamp for Royal Mail,1999

Poster for London's National Theatre, 2000

I ended my meeting with this
enthusiastic pair, recalling Kitching's childhood in Darlington where his
father, a joiner by profession, would lovingly paint small water colours in the
evening or would pick up his accordion and cheer everyone up with a tune. I
turned to Kitching and said, 'I don't suppose you...' Before I could finish the
sentence he was standing before me holding a very serious looking accordion
which he set about demonstrating and from my left Stothard joined in with a
remarkably clear and tuneful voice.

As I watched Kitching's agile fingers
dance across the grid of buttons I could see a connection with type
composition, with the same dexterity and intuitive flow. My eyes glanced down
to the floor and as I listened to this musical duo I thought how Kitching could
reflect on a full and rewarding life; a tutor at a prestigious art and design
college, a member of Alliance Graphic International and a Royal Designer for
Industry. Not bad for an 11-plus failer, destined to spend his life working for
the railway.

And what about the designer who created the other work on my
wall? That's another story.